All Lives Matter

All lives matter…

To God, they certainly do:

White skin, yellow skin

Black skin or blue.

It doesn’t matter the colour

The class or the creed,

All lives matter

So let’s take that lead.

If ever you wish

You are not the oppressed

Then you are spot on

Re the awareness test.

That’s a mouthful, I guess,

Let me try to explain,

If you don’t relish my shoes

You are seeing my pain.

Some things are standard,

Par for any course:

Like human rights and fair-play

And justice of course.

If any colour or caste

Is deprived of these,

Then such lives don’t matter,

They are under siege.

If one’s colour is offensive

Then his life doesn’t matter,

Supremacists say deprive him

So we can get fatter.

Not enough room in this world

For both him and me

Unless I can derive some benefit

From his ability.

  

His life matters to me

As long as I can use him,

Until his usefulness expires

We have no problem.

Slavery still exists today

In all forms and fashion,

Oppression and suppression:

An obvious passion.

It is not easy to relinquish

The ascendancy,

When it comes to the downtrodden

I’d rather him than me.

I am sure few Whites would say,

“I wish I were black.”

And if Blacks were white

Neither would they wish that.

It is alarmingly obvious

Which is the lower estate,

It is certainly not the Whites-

They are the ones that dictate.

I wish the world were a piano

In the following way:

Blacks and Whites would make music

The way symphonics play.

Take out the black keys

There’d be no sharps and flats,

Just one major key

And, who would like that?

Only one minor key

If there were whites alone,

Remember, harmony is dependent

On a variety of tones.

God created one race

It is time that we all grasp that,

Hence, Whites you need to get it!

You are no better than Blacks.

That all lives matter

Is greater impetus to the cause

And that should be clear to all

Since it is enshrined in the laws.

In the slogan “all lives matter”

There are no racial slurs,

It speaks to harmony and integration

On this we can concur.

For the time being, however,

Black lives matter,

There are the ones being oppressed

Like “John’s head on a platter”.

Stewart Russell © June 2020